Woman Admits Slashing Baby's Throat For Revenge

[dmp]

Oh. My. God. This woman is a monster and needs to die. Die a horrible painful death. Send her to Iraq and let muslims behead her.

BOSTON -- Natalie Rodriguez sobbed as if even she couldn't believe what she was hearing as a prosecutor described how she snatched her friend's 9-month-old baby from his crib, slit his throat and let him bleed to death in a snowbank.

"It wasn't supposed to happen," the 23-year-old said. But it did.

Rodriguez on Tuesday tearfully apologized as she entered a guilty plea to second-degree murder and kidnapping charges that will keep her in prison for at least another 26 years for the December 2002 slaying of Xavier Antonio Miranda.

Prosecutors said she was drunk and enraged at being kicked out of her childhood friend's apartment, and killed the baby in retaliation.

"She was there when my son was born," the boy's mother, Giselle Miranda, said Tuesday as she stared at Rodriguez from the witness stand. "It really hurts to know my only friend did this to me. It destroyed my family. It destroyed everybody."

Rodriguez, who will be eligible for parole when she is 49, blamed her actions on her "dysfunctional ways of living." She's an alcoholic with a history of mental illness and an attempted suicide, her lawyers said. She had been drinking before the slaying.

"My son was innocent," Miranda said after Rodriguez averted a first-degree murder trial by pleading guilty to lesser charges. "If she had any type of grudge she could have taken it out on me or my husband, not my son. My son had the right to live. I have no words for her."

As part of the plea, Rodriguez was sentenced for the murder to life in prison, with possibility of parole after 15 years, plus 14 to 15 years for the kidnapping. With time served, Rodriguez could be released from prison in 26 years.

Rodriguez and Giselle Miranda, 22, were childhood friends who grew up in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston. Rodriguez, pregnant at age 16, had a son with Miranda's brother.

One month before the slaying, Miranda's family took in Rodriguez and her then-4-year-old son in their three-bedroom Chelsea apartment after Rodriguez lost her job at a Social Security office and was kicked out her family home.

But Rodriguez frequently drank, was belligerent, and didn't pay rent. The Miranda family told her to move out. Her deadline was the day she killed the baby.

Rodriguez admitted she silently lifted Xavier out of his crib at 3 a.m., picked up a knife from the kitchen, placed him face down in a snowbank in a neighbor's driveway, and slashed his throat. She then hid the boy's body under a trash can in the driveway.

Rodriguez was arrested later that day after police who had been looking for the missing baby found his body. Police said Rodriguez confessed.

"I was the cause of the death of a precious boy who I loved dearly," Rodriguez said Tuesday through tears. "I want to apologize to the family. I'm very sorry."

She referred to her "dysfunctional ways of living and not having control of my life," which drew quiet groans from some of the two-dozen relatives and friends of Xavier.

Giselle and Walter Miranda have three other children, ages 1 through 3. They now live in Revere. They said they had hoped for a longer prison sentence.

David Procopio, spokesman for the Suffolk County district attorney's office, defended the plea agreement.

"We removed the uncertainty of a trial and assured a conviction and allowed the family to hear the defendant stand up in open court and take responsibility for her actions," he said.

Xavier's mother described him as a "wonderful little boy, a happy baby."

Added his father, Walter Miranda: "It's scary. You can't trust nobody around your kids."

http://www.kirotv.com/mostpopular/8638765/detail.html

 

[BATMAN]

"It wasn't supposed to happen"

What did she think would happen when she cut the baby's throat?
The tearful apology was for the Oprah crowd.

 

[nosarcasm]

that is truly evil.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

looks like a case of "wetback logic" to me. Just kidding.

 

[insein]

2nd degree murder? Holy shit! If ever there was a case for first degree, this is it. She deliberately sought the child out with the intention of killing it. Death is too kind.